Srinagar: A Sessions Court has upheld a trial court judgment that convicted and sentenced a man to three year simple imprisonment for sexually abusing a child in the Pantha Chowk area in city outskirts in the year 2008.
The court of 4th Additional Sessions Judge Srinagar while dismissing an appeal by the accused Manzoor Ahmad Bhat, son of M Ashraf Bhat from Khanmuh Srinagar said “this court finds that the judgment passed by the trial magistrate does not suffer from any infirmity, as same has passed rightly without any illegality by the magistrate in the light of the evidence produced by the parties before it.”
Accordingly the order by the trial court (Forest Magistrate Srinagar) on December 22, 2017, which convicted the accused for offences under sections 377/511 RPC, was upheld.
On October 24, 2008, a complaint was lodged by the complainant, the labourer father of the victim child, at Pantah Chowk Police Station. The complainant said that his son was on way to his abode after carrying meals for him. The accused Manzoor met his six year old child on the way. He paid the child Rs 10 and committed the heinous and unnatural offence with him.
When he, the father returned home in the evening, the victim (child) told him the tragedy he had met at the hands of the accused.
The victim was bought to the nearest medical centre. Here the concerned doctor certified “there was excoriation around anus of the victim child and that there was a sexual attempt at the child. There was no evident injury around the anus, the slight excoriation can be caused by sexual attempt.”
The accused pleaded not guilty and appealed against the trial court judgment. He said the court has failed to appreciate the evidence on record and the conviction and sentence has been passed on mere “conjunctures and surmises”. He pleaded that the approach of the trial court does not accord with the mandate of law and that the material on record put forth by the prosecution and evidence led by the prosecution is “highly shabby contradictory, vague, false, frivolous, baseless , fabricated and concocted”.
The court of appeal while dismissing the arguments of the accused, observed “there is nothing on record suggestive of fact that there is error or procedural lapse in the trial of present case.
“The grounds of appeal demonstrate that most of them have been pleaded without any explanation and justification. Here in the instant case, it is the appellant who thinks the impugned judgment passed by the trial court is not in accordance with the law, while perusal of the records reveals that the proceedings of the case took place as per the proper procedure.”
The court said that there is nothing on the record which could suggest that the trial court has not opted procedure while disposing of the file in accordance with the law and there is nothing on the record, which could suggest that there are some doubts in the prosecution evidence led by the prosecution before the trial court.
It also said that “the victim has categorically deposed his statement that the accused has done unnatural act with him … . The statement of the victim got corroborated from the statement of the doctor.”
